Dino Blood Redux

By Gary S. Hurd, Ph. D.

Posted May 8, 2005

(This is a slightly modified version of an essay that
originally appeared on Panda's
Thumb, under the same title.)

On 24 March 2005, a team of paleontologists lead by Mary
Higby Schweitzer published their discovery of dinosaur soft tissues recovered
from the cortical bone of a T. rex femur. The three page paper in Science magazine, published by the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, presents the striking
discovery of apparently preserved organic tissues. These include several cell types that the authors feel able
to delineate by direct comparison to modern cells recovered from a recent
ostrich femur. (Schweitzer MH,
Wittmeyer JL, Horner JR, Toporski JK (2005) Soft-Tissue Vessels and Cellular
Preservation in Tyrannosaurus rex. Science 307(5717):1952-1955). Within hours of their story's release
creationist email lists and bulletin boards were blazing around the world about
the new scientific "proof" of the Earth's recent creation. One small, and hopeful change from
Schweitzer's similar 1990s "discovery" is that this time both she and Horner
have made direct statements that this find is neither a contradiction of the
sciences, nor of an ancient Earth.

Because I have written on the creationist distortion of
earlier dinosaur soft tissue research published by Schweitzer,
Dino-blood and
the Young Earth, some have wondered why I haven't personally
reacted. I even received a few
emails that demanded that I retract that article. This is an absurd misunderstanding of that article, the
evidence it was based on, and the research published by Schweitzer and various
colleagues since the early 1990s.

It may surprise a few people, but I am not interested in
dinosaurs. I rented the first
Jurassic Park movie when it came out on videotape, and I skipped the rest.

The media response: Send in the Clones.

The main Science article appears as a fairly
straightforward report that when the mineral component of a tyrannosaur femur
was removed, there remained an organic mass with characters similar to those
found in ostrich bone. Schweitzer
et al believe they have recovered material that represented osteocytes, blood cells,
and vessels. They state, "The
vessels and contents are similar in all respects to blood vessels recovered
from extant ostrich bone."
(Photos of these can be seen from the original article, and some are
also available in Tyrannosaur
morsels on PZ Myers' personal blog). Schweitzer et al notably offered no alternate
explanation for their finding- they are entirely standing on the assertion that
these are the original dinosaur tissues.
Not until the last paragraph do they even comment that, "Whether
preservation is strictly morphological and the result of some kind of unknown
geochemical replacement process or whether it extends to the subcellular and
molecular levels is uncertain."

However, alternatives do exist, as has been pointed out in
the accompanying perspective article in Science written by Eric
Stokstad, "Tyrannosaurus rex Soft Tissue Raises Tantalizing
Prospects" (Science, vol. 307:1852).

Hendrik Poinar of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario,
cautions that looks can deceive: Nucleated protozoan cells have been found in 225-million-year-old
amber, but geochemical tests revealed that the nuclei had been replaced with
resin compounds. Even the resilience of the vessels may be deceptive. Flexible
fossils of colonial marine organisms called graptolites have been recovered
from 440-million-year-old rocks, but the original material--likely
collagen--had not survived.

In short, there are known instances where
reworked material can have the appearance of the 'tissues' reported by
Schweitzer et al.

As is nearly always the case, the juicy bits are in the
background. The great advantage
that science journals have today is the ability to put all supplemental details
on-line. In this case, the three
page "main" article sports a supporting text over four times as
long. For example, the main
article has left many people with the false impression that the recovered
tissues were in a soft pliable state when first exposed. This is not true. All of the fossil material was
rehydrated during the same process that removed the mineral components of the
bone. They were then buffered, and
also some were fixed. The related
press reports have created the impression that there are large features with
the characteristics of fresh tissue.
This is not true. The
structures examined are a few millimeters across at most. The last, and rather irritating aspect
of this research is not from the Science article, or the supporting material,
but from the press interviews given by Schweitzer which repeatedly hint at the
recovery of DNA, and even of cloning.

The most absurd example of this was a 2 minute video
Associated Press distributed on the Schweitzer dino-blood announcement which is
linked from the LA Times and other news sources. In outline, we have 37 seconds
of "Jurassic Park" clips with lines like "Dino DNA ... is a disaster ..." and then we are
treated to Jack Horner's single sentence; something about
"DNA...DNA...DNA..."
followed with more "Jurassic Park" until at one minute into
the clip, we are shown Mary Schweitzer saying her only line, "No this does
not mean that we are cloning dinosaurs in our lab, and we probably will
not." The narrator Rita Foley
in her best "ingénues are stupidTM" voice, squeaks,
"Probably?!!"

A last few seconds of "Jurassic Park" clips and
the window to educate the public was closed.

A significantly better video was presented on MSNBC, and is
linked from Scientists recover T. rex
soft tissue 70-million-year-old fossil yields preserved blood
vessels. No "Jurassic
Park" footage, but here again, Schweitzer made easily misinterpreted
statements contradicted by her published work. Just one example was her statement that the contents of
vessels could be readily "squeezed out." Since she offered no laboratory procedure as a context, this
left the impression that these remains just popped out of the bone as fresh as
if the dinosaur died yesterday.

The print media have been a little better in their
reportage. The Los Angeles Times
ran the story on the 25th (front page below the fold) and used three
microphotographs from the Science article. But even here, they referred to the recovered material as
"fresh" at the same time describing the weeks long labor need to
recover and reconstitute them.
However, they are obviously following closely to Schweitzer's statements
regarding her results. She stated,
"The tissues are still soft. The microstructures that look like cells are
preserved in every way" (as quoted in the LA Times). Much worse was the later editorial
published in the LA Times. The
antiscience bias of the editorial was manifested by referring to
paleontologists as "fossil geeks."
The writer's scientific incompetence was made manifest by the their
dismay at the possibility of cloning a T. rex based on Schweitzer's
reported material. I was
left with the unavoidable conclusion that the editorial's author had not been
able to understand the article by their own reporter, Robert Lee Holtz.

The New York Times had an editorial prompted by the
discovery, An
Unexpected Softness, that made a good observation on science in general,
that a tension exists between, "... the effort to consolidate the known
facts into a stable theory. The other is to discover new facts -- with no
guarantee whether they will reinforce or undermine the old
consolidations." Beyond this
insight, the cloning of dinosaurs again raised its head.

Adding fuel to the simmering sense of cultural inferiority
many Americans harbor toward the British, the BBC Word News did a much superior
job of reportage which is available online at,
T. rex fossil has
'soft tissues'. There the
reader learns that, "Dr. Schweitzer is not making any grand claims that
these soft traces are the degraded remnants of the original material -- only
that they give that appearance."
Also, another expert in the small field of molecular paleontology, Prof.
Matthew Collins provided comment.

"This may not be fossilisation as we know it, of large
macrostructures, but fossilisation at a molecular level," commented Dr
Matthew Collins, who studies ancient bio-molecules at York University, UK. "My suspicion is this process has
led to the reaction of more resistant molecules with the normal proteins and
carbohydrates which make up these cellular structures, and replaced them, so
that we have a very tough, resistant, very lipid-rich material -- a polymer that
would be very difficult to break down and characterise, but which has preserved
the structure," he told the BBC.

Further, totally distinguished from the Associated Press
video nonsense, the BBC quoted Schweitzer with more than an out of context
sound bite regarding DNA,

"I actually don't work with DNA and my
lab is not set up to do that," said Dr. Schweitzer. "Our goal is more
to look to see what we can find with respect to the proteins that are coded by
the DNA.

To a large degree, most of the chemical studies that have
been done suggest proteins are more durable than DNA and they have almost the
same kind of information because they use DNA as their template."

In media interviews Jack Horner, Schweitzer's coauthor and
former professor, has been much more cautious. He appeared on a radio program,
"On
Point" broadcast by National Public Radio were Tom Ashcroft
interviewed him along with molecular taphonomist Derek Briggs of Yale
University, and science writer Carl Zimmer. Then he repeatedly said that they in fact have no idea what
the recovered "tissues" are made of, or actually represent. Schweitzer did not appear on the
program, but this could mean that there are the familiar disagreements that can occur between coauthors
and particularly professors and former students. For example, when Ashcroft asked the question,

"If it's soft tissue, what else would it be other than
biological?"

Horner replied, "Well that's a good question, but I
don't think we go in with the assumption that it is {biological} until we can
do our analyses. (approx. minute 30 of the interview)" He also said, "It would be
nice to know what this stuff is made of ... if there are proteins present, is
it biological?" And,
"We're not looking for DNA, we are trying to determine what this stuff is
and why it is flexible."

The new creationist response: the more it changes, the
more it stays the same.

Creationist E-mails, and Bulletin Board quotes.

There are perhaps hundreds of internet sites devoted in at
least part to the conflicting views about science and religion that are in
sharpest focus when addressing
evolution. These discussions can
appear in some strange contexts, such as web sites dedicated to competitive
weight lifting, "Star Wars" fan clubs, and Christian rock 'n roll
bands, as well as the more obvious sites dedicated to fundamentalism and even
the "impending" apocalyptic rapture. The first commentary on these sites appeared within minutes
of the Schweitzer announcement.

I received my first creationist email within an hour of the
Schweitzer announcement which demanded that I retract my earlier writing on
creationism and dinosaurs and concluded,

So far, it looks like nearly
every new finding falls in line with a 'young-earth' and, people like you who
find it so easy to criticize creationist's views (many of which are
speculation, I'll agree) seem to completely ignore the FACT that the entire
theory of evolution and 'millions of years' is speculation. I guess
'scientists' may use speculation or guesses but the 'unscientific' creationists
must always use true, observable and reproducible science in all their
arguments. Okay. In the end, the people who take the Bible literally will win.
Not because they are always perfect or right but because God is -- and His Word
is!

Throughout the next few hours, stretching into days, similar
opinion was repeated. A few
typical examples follow:

"There were no dinosaurs 70 million years ago.
If there is enough DNA some whack job will attempt to clone one. However, if
God wanted them here they would still be here so I don't think there will be
much success. God is God and we are not! "

"Under no condition could soft tissue exist 70
million years.

Besides, creation is only 6000 years old. "

"IMHO, it would take more faith to believe these
soft tissues are 70 million years old than it would take to believe Almighty
God brought the universe into existence in 6 days.

The invention of man is clever in his own mind and
foolishness to God."

"It will take a few days for the evolutionists
to circle the wagons and invent another foolish explanation."

"For those who believe in a 6,000 year-old Earth
(such as myself): I heard a speaker last year in Tulsa (Dr. Thomas Sharpe) who
discussed convincing evidence of a younger earth. Amoungst his evidence were
some red blood cells discovered inside a T-Rex bone. This discovery stunned
some scientists because it was simply impossible that red blood cells could've
existed for millions of years, and the find is still hotly debated. (This
refers to Schweitzer's graduate work in the 1990s. gh).

Then this week, this was discovered: ..."

"Someone will argue that the bone was encased in
enough dirt or rock and deprived of oxygen so the process of decay was
slowed/halted.

There can be nothing that unrepentant man will allow to
challenge his arrogant knowledge.

But God will not be mocked."

"As a science teacher, I agree with {the comment
above}. There is nothing that an unbeliever will not accept on faith (ha ha) to
disprove a real God. They will come up with some explanation for this one. But
be encouraged, I am coming across more and more scientists who are also
followers of Christ. Do not assume that all scientists are unbelievers. I am
one of those EVIL PUBLIC SCHOOL SCIENCE TEACHERS By the way, I also proclaim
JESUS whenever presented with the opportunity. And those opportunities come
often when working with hurting teenagers."

"Will anyone tell us how the T-Rex tissue
remained soft for over 65,000,000 years while the rest of the dead decaying
dino carcuss either rotted completely away or fossilized?

Could the real answer be surfacing? That is it's not as old
as the EVO-BABBLERS make it out to be?"

"To me this blood sample cant be millions of
years old. As a person who has attended deceased bodies, blood specimens cant
be in a fluid state surrounded by rock ect. This rock would say draw out any
moisture."

"Actually, the evolution emperor knows he has no
clothes...he just has far too much invested in the facade....his empire...his
very way of life...

If the emperor lets even one thread fray in his carefully
crafted fallacy, he knows the whole of his foolish empire will unravel and be
exposed for the ugly, naked, lie that it is.

You and I will never be able to show the truth to a
dedicated evolutionist any more than they will ever convince us that a monkey
becomes a man....because, that (evolution) is what they put their faith in.
Just like you and I put our faith in God and His Word.

There is only way to convince such a foul realm of the
truth...pray that Almighty God will burn away the fog of imagined intellect
that they use to hide behind and let His light shine truth upon
all."

I just can't believe scientists still perservere with
this evolution theory. After such contradictory evidence why are scientists
still determined to believe a lie than the truth?

And of course, the constant creationist stand-by all purpose
mantra,

"Evolution is one of the biggest lie, the devil ever came
up with to deceive mankind"

{Spelling and grammar of all quotes are as in the
originals}.

These, and hundreds of similar comments, reduce to just a
few themes:

The discovery was of "fresh" soft tissue
obvious merely by cracking open the bone,

Fresh tissue "proves" that these bones are
recent,

Scientists know this is the case, and lie to the public,
(A particularly ironic variation is that scientists have been so indoctrinated
that they are incapable of recognizing reality).

Evolutionary biology, and related sciences such as
geology, paleontology, and anthropology are anti-God, if not actually demonic.

These widely and fervently held beliefs are fueled by
professional creationists who profit through promoting ignorance.

The professional creationists weigh in

The creationist public is ill served by a cadre of
professional parasites whose major product is an outrageous distortion of
scientific research. They also
promote a paranoid version of theology that I am not qualified to comment on
personally, but is clearly contradicted by representatives of nearly every
mainline Christian denomination in the world today as evidenced by
An
Open Letter Concerning Religion and Science that has been endorsed the
date of this writing by about three thousand members of the clergy.

The position that science is nothing but a vast conspiracy
we saw above expoused by rank and file creationists is promoted by such
"preachers" as Ken Ham, an executive of the Answers in Genesis Ministry,
Inc. Utilizing fundamentalist, and
politically far-right media, Ham presents his case that "common sense" is more
reliable than scientific study, and that scientists are engaged in a concerted
effort to delude the public. He
sounded this theme shortly after the Schweitzer announcement in an interview
for the "agape press." From their April 6, 2005 article
written by Allie Martin entitled "Young Earth Creationist Has New Bone to Pick
With Evolutionists," we read,

"Ham is convinced proponents of the theory
of evolution will not allow the Montana find to change their minds. Even
though, he contends, the recent discovery supports the young Earth theory of
origins, he believes evolutionists will say anything rather than admit that the
biblical account of creation is true."

There is a genius to this; Ham inoculates his followers from
even paying any attention to the scientific data, and does this without making
a single statement of fact.

Just
for added measure, Ham delivered a 'booster shot' a couple of weeks later,
again at the fundamentalist "agape press" and again in an article written by
Allie Martin. This time, April 22,
2005 in an item titled, "Creationist: Montana T-Rex Bone Supports Biblical
Story, Not Darwin's," Ham asserts
without basis or evidence that,

"If the Montana fossil were as old as
the scientific establishment would have people believe, the AiG spokesman
points out, no soft tissue should have remained to be found. Most experts agree
that a fossil dating back tens of millions of years would have completely
petrified over such an expanse of time."

The article concludes,

"According to Ham,
evolutionists should be disturbed by the recent discovery of soft tissues in a
supposedly 80-million-year-old dinosaur bone. He says similar findings have
been downplayed by evolutionists in the past; but despite their efforts to spin
or ignore the proof, it is clear that such discoveries support the biblical
account of creation and Earth history."

So, with not a single fact at his disposal, Ham asserts that
the Schweitzer discovery is one that challenges the foundations of all the
sciences, that scientists are all part of a conspiracy, and the goal of the
conspiracy is to attack biblical teaching.

It refers to a non-technical news item as if
it were an actual scientific paper. ... It asserts that organic molecules found
in ancient material disproves all independent dating methods and therefore
implies the Earth is a scant thousands of years old.

Note that I had to
remove the following sentence from above, "It misrepresents the findings
claiming that there were 'obvious, fresh-looking blood cells' seen in dinosaur
bone." because in this instance, Mary Schweitzer has hung her professional
standing on just this claim. She
does in fact, and repeatedly, state that these new materials are obvious
fresh-looking cells in both her publications and her popular press
assertions. While it is quite true
that "fresh-looking" isn't the same as "fresh" this should
afford little protection from the critical review of Schweitzer's work.

Wieland does provide a few new 'zingers.' For example, in the very first sentence
he tells us that, "We previously announced the discovery of what seemed to
be microscopic red blood cells ..."
The day that AiG, and their house rag, Creation is the debut
publication of mainstream science is the day I'll shoot myself. The cited items are
"announcements' only in
Wieland's fevered imagination.
Nevertheless, his major misrepresentations do not begin until the fourth
sentence. There were several prior
errors of fact and interpretation, but the first gross falsehood was not until
the fourth sentence. For AiG this
is doing very well (see
Boiled
Creationist with a Side of Hexaglycine: Sarfati on Imai et al.
(1999)). Wieland wrote,

The fact that this really is unfossilized soft tissue from a dinosaur is
in this instance so obvious to the naked eye that any scepticism directed at
the previous discovery is completely "history".

There are three falsehoods in this sentence; first, there
were not soft remains "obvious to the naked eye" unless Wieland has
superhuman microscopic X-ray vision.
Oddly, one might say 'suspiciously' or perhaps more fairly
'incompetently,' none of the microphotographs associated with the AiG
"announcement" of Schweitzer's latest publication have the scale bars
found on all scientific publications of these results. Even the LA Times thought to include
the obvious fact that these are microscopic features.

AiG provided their readers with the photos above,
credited to Mary Schweitzer. These
appeared in the
on-line
supplement to Schweitzer et al as Figure S2.C (left), and Figure S1.C
(insert) for the image on the right.
The captions are strikingly different between Schweitzer et al
and Wieland for these images. For
example, of the right image, Schweitzer says,

"Fig. S1(C) A third
vessel shows small microstructures either within or attached to the vessel
wall. The structures are ovoid and possess an inner opaque core. They are
completely consistent in size and shape with nucleated circulating blood cells
taken from mature ostrich (D) and extant chicken (E)."

Wieland says,

Right:
These microscopic structures were able to be squeezed out of some of the blood
vessels, and can be seen to "look like cells" as the researchers said. So once
again there is scope for Dr Schweitzer to ask the same question, "How could
these cells last for 65 million years?" {again referring to Schweitzer's
popular press article in 1997. gh}

Of course, Wieland neglects to
inform his readers that the entire image is about 0.25 millimeters across. The entire long axis of the left image
is a grand 0.03725 of a millimeter.
Hardly "obvious to the naked eye."

The second falsehood is that this material is
"unfossilized." The
third falsehood is that Wieland asserts without foundation that this newest
claim reduces the prior refutations of his nonsense to "history," by
which he means unfounded. The
earlier lies promoted by Wieland concerning Schweitzer's early graduate student
work are contradicted by evidence- that evidence being the public record of
Schweitzer's statements and publications.
(I do grant Wieland that Schweitzer's current statements are that she
sees essentially intact dinosaurian tissues preserved by some unknown
fossilization mechanism, and I think that she should be held to that standard).

However, this misdirection is not the "main event." Center stage is the YEC fallacy that
organic remains recovered from ancient bones forces the conclusion that these
bones must be recent. As Wieland
phrased the issue,

"The reason that this possibility has long been
overlooked seems obvious: the overriding belief in "millions of years". The
long-age paradigm (dominant belief system) blinded researchers to the
possibility, as it were. It is inconceivable that such things should be
preserved for (in this case) "70 million years".

Wieland concluded,

"I invite the reader to step
back and contemplate the obvious. This discovery gives immensely powerful
support to the proposition that dinosaur fossils are not millions of years old at all, but were
mostly fossilized under catastrophic conditions a few thousand years ago at
most.*7

7. Some dinosaur fossils could have formed in post-Flood
local catastrophes.

It is hard to imagine for anyone trained in the rigor of
science that someone could offer as an apparent concession the notion that
"Some dinosaur fossils could have formed in post-Flood local
catastrophes." Even when
considering that by "post-Flood," Wieland means that there are dinosur remains
floating about that are less than 4000 years old it is hard to imagine they are
serious but not inconceivable.
What is inconceivable is that Wieland is honestly ignorant that the
dates associated with the age of these remains have anything at all to do with
their condition. This is the great
fraud perpetrated on their dupes by professional creationists such as
Wieland. The age of the specific
T. rex bone which was the principle database for Schweitzer et al
is not based on either its macro- or microscopic appearance but of the age of
the rock that it was found in, "... the base of the Hell Creek
Formation, 8 m above the Fox Hills Sandstone, as an association of
disarticulated elements."
The appearance of soft tissue, hard tissue or no tissue has no bearing
in the age of this material- organic or inorganic. What is the basis for these age determinations is the
independent existence of geochemical "clocks" known as radiometric
dating. Professional creationists
and their prey simply reject radiometric dates, which has always seemed to me
to be an odd logical contradiction, or in an anthropological term: cognitive
dissonance. If these people are
able to ignore geology, chemistry and physics, why do they even bother to lie
about biology? Why does Wieland,
having left the universe of chemists, physicists, and geologists (the rest of
the sciences one also assumes), feel compelled to lie about paleontology, and
evolutionary biology?

However, for the specific data relevant to the fossils
reported on by Schweitzer et al, and manipulated by Wieland (and David N. Menton, to follow)
which we recall were found in, "... the base of the Hell Creek
Formation..." we need only consult Radiometeric
Dating Does Work! by G. Brent Dalrymple.

There we find the following data for the Z-coal strata of
the Hell Creek Formation presented in the order of; Material, Method, # of
samples, Result in Millions of Years

tektites,

40Ar/39Ar total fusion,

28>

64.8 ++ 0.1

tektites,

40Ar/39Ar age spectrum,

1,

66.0++0.5

tektites,

40Ar/39Ar age spectrum,

1,

64.7++0.1

tektites,

40Ar/39Ar total fusion,

17,

64.8++0.2

biotite & sanidine,

K-Ar,

12,

64.6++1.0

biotite & sanidine,

Rb-Sr isochron (26 D.P.),

1,

63.7++0.6

zircon,

U-Pb concordia (16 data),

1,

63.9++0.8

So, the MOR 1125 femur happens to be one of the better dated
dinosaur bones known to exist.
The independently established age of this bone is based on 86 separate
chemical analyses on three different kinds of minerals, based on four
independent radiometric decay series.
It doesn't get much better than that.

It does not matter what the bones look like, or what is in
them. If Wieland and his deluded
followers want to dispute the age of this fossil, or the Earth, or the
Universe, they cannot use the presence or absence of organic tissues among their
"evidences."

Just four days after the Schweitzer et al
announcement, we were treated to his assessment of these results,
'Ostrich-osaurus'
discovery?. It is
obvious that Menton should have taken the time to read more carefully or
better, to not bother at all.

That said, Menton did avoid many of the gross errors made by
Wieland, but managed to make some new ones all his own. In his second sentence, we find the
repeated falsehood that the ages of bones are determined by their
appearance. In my thirty years of
excavation, I have recovered bones that looked quite modern, and others that
were little more than a streak of discolored soil. This reflects the burial conditions and not the age of the
bone. The characteristic
creationist flourishes such as "supposed evolutionary history," and
the false assertion that any water borne sediment implies the Noah's flood
myth, have become so familiar that they may pass largely unnoticed. We read to the second page before
Menton's ideologue status is fully confirmed.

Menton: "Then, in an obvious effort to
capitalize on the current "birds are dinosaurs" craze in evolutionism, the
authors go on to compare the microscopic anatomy of their well-preserved
dinosaur bone to a bone from a bird. For some unexplained reason, they chose an
unidentified area of an unidentified bone from a recently deceased ostrich.

What Menton has chosen to obsess over is the evolutionary
link between birds and dinosaurs which, far from a "current craze,"
is the nearly universal consensus among paleontologists. As Jack Horner observed in a recent
interview, "Birds are dinosaurs." The "unexplained" reason that paleontologists
would refer to bird bone for comparative material is "unexplained"
because no scientifically competent reader needs explanation. Menton's fatuous complaint that the
specific ostrich bone and sampled area are not described must stem from his
lack of familiarity with current scientific publishing. As I mentioned above, the three page
'main' article has a nineteen page "on-line supplement" where details
of experimental procedure and additional results are presented. This has been the standard procedure
for many years now, and the supplement is considered part of the literature
associated with the finding.

In the
supplement,
we learn that the ostrich cortical bone, "was ground for earlier
experiments and stored at -20oC for several years." Whether this cortical material came
from one specific bone or another is to the best of my knowledge
irrelevant. This also addresses
Menton's inane, and insulting suggestion that "these paleontologists"
had never before "looked at soft tissue or bone through a
microscope." What is apparent
is Menton is so intent on attacking these results he has missed why any
comparison was made to any recent fresh tissue: Schweitzer et al were
presenting the case that the ancient material they observed looked like modern
cells and tissues. That was all
the main paper was claiming, and it is good of Menton to fully confirm these
results. If he were to retain any
credibility as a scientist, which his current screed shows he lacks, Schweitzer
et al should no doubt have been grateful. Menton's criticism is truly weird; he slams Schweitzer et
al for demonstrating to Menton's satisfaction everything which they had set
out to demonstrate.

Menton's next error again stems from his failure to read the
supplemental data included with the main article. I do not know if he lacks access to Science, or the
wit to know what supplemental "Supporting Online Material" meant, or
how to use the internet. Actually,
I can't imagine that a "Professor Emeritus" is denied library
privileges or that the Washington University School of Medicine lacks a
subscription to Science magazine.
Regardless, Menton objects that, "While the authors report what
appear to be red blood cells in both the dinosaur and the ostrich, they do not
mention the presence of nuclei in the red blood cells." There are a number of descriptions of
nucleated blood cells in the supplement, including those recovered from MOR
1125, the T. rex discussed in the main article, but also, in additional
dinosaur bones examined by the team.
Most notably, an image taken from cortical bone of T. rex
FMNH-PR-2081, are directly compared with those from fresh ostrich blood, and
fresh chicken blood. Schweitzer
et al say,

"These microstructures are of a consistent size
and character, and contain what appears to be a central nucleus (inset). These structures are virtually
identical in size (approximately 20 Ám), shape, and overall appearance with
mature nucleated blood cells from ostrich (Fig. S1D) and chicken (Fig.
S1E).

Why is this so notable? Because the same T. rex image was used in Carl Weiland's
bloviation, referred to by Menton, and reproduced both by AiG and
discussed here.

Merton, leads his conclusion with, "Sadly, we
have become accustomed to reading published reports pertaining to evolution and
its millions of years in both the popular and scientific literature that are
highly biased and lacking in scientific substance."

This is idiocy.
The point undertaken by Schweitzer et al in their main paper is
conceded in its entirety by Menton -- there are residues following the
demineralization of dinosaur bone that have the appearance of vessels, blood
cells, endothelial cells and osteocytes.
Menton's colleague in foolishness, Wieland, cites the discovery as proud
"proof" that the Earth is young based on "common sense." Not once in the main article, or the
supplement did Schweitzer et al refer directly to the age of the
fossil. They needed only refer to
the rock where it was found encased.
As discussed above this is one of the better dated strata in the world. If Weiland and Menton wish to
dispute chemistry and physics, then they should respond to a far different
literature. The irony of Menton's
statement regarding "bias" and lack of scientific substance is only
exceeded by one he makes almost immediately afterward.

But this study and report by Schweitzer and
co-workers are lacking in merit even by evolutionary standards.

The article received worldwide press coverage. The article hints at unsuspected ways
to recover fossil data. The article
totally vindicates Schweitzer's graduate work. (It was extremely good of Horner to give her this
"second shot" as it were, one which will hopefully bring more attention to
her interesting interim papers).
Having read a few journal articles by anatomists, though none I recall
by Menton, I must say that Schweitzer et al compares very well on the
basis of scientific merit (and this is not a criticism of anatomists).

Hinting at an even greater lack of competence that I earlier
suspected, Menton continued,

"... why did the authors choose to compare the
histology (microscopic anatomy) of this bone to an unidentified bone from a
bird -- and why an ostrich? Why not compare the histology of the dinosaur bone to
that of some living reptile? After all, dinosaurs are reptiles.

Menton is an anatomist, which can be approached as a largely
descriptive discipline where an entire career can be spent teaching medical,
and allied heath students the same muscle inserts and attachments, and the
names of the same bones and all their bumps and protrusions. I know, because I did this same thing
for some years, though hardly a career's worth. Perhaps this is why Menton fails to grasp the experimental
hypothesis subtlety tested.
According to the principle of common descent, and modern paleontology,
birds have descended from dinosaurs.
According to creationists, dinosaurs represent many thousands of extinct
forms of the reptiles. As Menton
claimed, if creationists are correct, "... dinosaurs are
reptiles."(I personally do
not understand why Menton wants this to be added to the creationists'
"evidences," list but so be it). If then, bird material had failed to match morphologically
with the recovered dinosaur material, this would have been a blow against
evolutionary theory, and at least indirectly suggesting that there could have
been some basis for creationists' (or minimally Menton's) reconstruction of how
extinct life forms might be related to modern ones. Evolutionary theory holds the suggestion that both
dinosaurs, and by descent, birds are related to reptiles. So there is little to be challenged by
evolutionary theory to compare reptiles and dinosaurs because that relationship
is already a given fact. A finding
that the dinosaur material had not closely resembled that of birds would have
strongly challenged current understanding.

By Menton's own formulation, birds should not be related to
dinosaurs because "After all, dinosaurs are reptiles," and so he
weakens his own position. Again,
it is the "Supporting Online Material" that holds the even greater
denunciation of Menton's creationism.
It is there that we find that Schweitzer et al also prepared
organic extracts from the MOR 1125 T. rex, encasing sandstone, and associated
fossilized plants. They also
prepared similar extracts of modern bird tissues, specifically ostrich bone,
chicken bone, and chicken tendon.
These extracts were tested by ELISA immunoassay against antisera for
bovine osteocalcin, and chicken collagen.
Osteocalcin is highly conserved (very little variation) across boney
organisms, and it matters little which type is used (See
Ancient Molecules
and Modern Myths for further details). Not so for collagen.
In the graph below, these data are summarized with negative controls
from blanks, and buffers. The data
have been adjusted to account for non-specific reactivity of the controls. Note also the dilution effects.

This graph is David Menton's nightmare; strong indication
that there is molecular evidence that birds evolved from the dinosaurs. Notice that the two samples drawn
from the fossilized femur MOR-1125 both show significant responses to
x-Osteocalcin and x-chicken collagen, as do tissues from modern chickens and
ostriches. Comparison to the
burial matrix, and other controls which showed little reaction clearly
demonstrates that there are protein fragments assoiated with the fossil
bone. The ratio of collagen
reaction to osteocalcin reaction contrasted between the dinosaur samples and
the chicken tendon and chicken bone samples helps further fix these as bone
derived protein fragments. Even though
nearly every paleontologists alive feels that the fossil data relating birds
and dinosaurs is already adequate, we could be looking at the molecular
"smoking gun."

The potential significance of Schweitzer et al was
totally over the head of Carl Wieland, who incompetently cheered this paper as
"evidence" for a young Earth.
Merton's desperate need to attack Schweitzer et al with such
flatulence as, "One must assume that the standards for publication in
even the most prestigious scientific journals like Science are quite different
for evolution than for any other branch of empirical science," at
least suggests that unlike Wieland, he is aware of the fact that this paper
could presage the end of creationism's favorite argument that birds are
unrelated to dinosaurs.

What Next?

Horner and Schweitzer have both indicated that there will be
much more to be published related to this discovery. Horner indicated in his NPR interview that there were
aspects that he could not discuss because they have another article already in
review at Science. So at a
minimum we will see more science and much more fresh creationists' reaction.

Early student work by Schweitzer, and coauthored by Horner,
was grossly distorted by creationists.
Popular press announcements by Schweitzer were very bold and provocative
with hints of dinosaur DNA and linkage to the Crichton/Spielberg "Jurassic
Park" series of books and movies.
Young Earth Creationists immediately leapt on Schweitzer's claims of "fresh-looking"
tissue as proof that the Universe is merely thousands of years old. Schweitzer then spent most of a decade
backing away from her earliest claims, and denying that there was any point in
confronting creationists' distortion of her work.

The motivation to read and write about dinosaurs comes
merely from my interest and, as I see it, obligation to expose fallacious
manipulation of science by creationists.
I chose to train in anthropology because I am interested in people and
our nearest kin. I found that to
best understand my interests in human evolution and culture, I needed to learn
a modicum of the physical and biological sciences. This modicum at least enables me to carefully read articles
such as Schweitzer's. This was the
only basis of my only writing about the paleontology of dinosaurs. In my opinion, this obligation to
refute 'false teaching' is a general one shared by all scientists, and in the
case of the earlier research by Schweitzer, I personally encouraged her to face
this obligation. Nor was I the
first to have done so. She
declined in 2003 saying to me that it would be best for her career to simply
ignore the massive distortion of her work stemming largely from the Answers
in Genesis Ministry, Inc. Few
scientific colleagues were aware that Schweitzer has become something of a
favorite among young Earth creationists, and she was glad to keep it that
way. Schweitzer's major professor,
Jack Horner, was similarly disinclined in directly confronting
creationists. In brief, Mary
Schweitzer and Jack Horner, in spite of their protests, have provided
creationists with a rich diet for over a decade without ever bothering to
publicly refute the gross misrepresentations of their work.

Their new announcement has every indication of following in
the same pattern with one exception.
This time there could be a slight variation in that Horner and
Schweitzer have both publicly acknowledged the creationist distortions of this
new publication. In an interview
given to Catherine Clabby of the North Carolina "News &
Observer," Schweitzer's hometown newspaper, "Creationists
welcome fossil find", Schweitzer reports receiving hostile mail from
creationists questioning why she does not admit that her work is compatible
with their beliefs. She was quoted
as saying, "I'm caught in the middle of something. It feels ugly."

We are all in the middle of something -- a creationist attack
on reason and science -- and it is ugly.

That is why I hope that scientists like Horner and
Schweitzer whose creative ability attracts global attention will stop ignoring
or denying their responsibility to address the creationist threat. It is no longer adequate to merely
present results, but we must also address their larger implication and
anticipate creationists' attacks.

********************************************

Acknowledgments: The author would like to thank Dave Thomas
for his assistance in preparing the graphics. All errors of fact or interpretation are of course mine
own.